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Whatever your industrial sector, talent acquisition and retention is crucial. Recruiting the best employees is a highly competitive business, but once you’ve acquired the best talent, how do you ensure that their productivity remains as high as possible? The short answer is to see past remuneration and rewards to focus instead on making your workforce feel appreciated.

When 90 per cent of workers say that receiving recognition encourages them to be more productive, you can see how important it is for companies to take employee appreciation seriously. And the easiest way to ensure that everyone gets the recognition they’re due is to implement an employee recognition system.

This article explains how employee recognition systems operate and the productivity gains they can deliver for your business.

Why employee recognition systems matter

Worker productivity is critical in yielding the strong returns that ensure the health of your bottom line. But how can you increase productivity and motivate employees? Start by getting the most out of your employee recognition system. Build an engaging recognition programme and capitalise on the business impacts of social recognition:

  1. 4 x more likely to improve share prices
  2. 2 x more likely to improve NPS scores
  3. 2 x more likely to improve individual performances
When people are recognised by their leaders and peers it drives engagement, productivity and motivation. According to Deloitte, recognition is highly correlated with improving employee engagement, which in turn improves job performance and captures business value. In fact, employee engagement, productivity and performance are 14 per cent higher in organisations with social recognition than in those without.

Make recognition frequent across your workplace to ensure employees feel valued and appreciated for their hard work every day. Having an employee recognition system in place that displays praise on a company-wide platform has immense positive reinforcement power and can provide an extra motivational boost for your workforce.

In short, an employee recognition system can help your organisation:

  1. Improve employee productivity
  2. Strengthen your bottom line
  3. Build a positive company culture
  4. Retain your best employees
  5. Align employees to company values
  6. Unite a multi-generational workforce
How to get started

With the advancements in technology, it’s possible to get your hands on employee recognition systems that offer comprehensive functionality; just make sure you’re looking for the right criteria. Below is an 11-point checklist for evaluating employee recognition systems:

  1. Security certification
  2. Integrations
  3. Programme consolidation
  4. Real-time reporting
  5. Smart budgeting
  6. User experience
  7. Thought leadership
  8. Core values and behaviours
  9. High frequency
  10. Transparency
  11. Social recognition
After you find the right employee recognition system for your business, start crafting a strategic plan with programme goals. Ensure your programme delivers on the following for optimal success:
  1. Aim for frequent recognition
  2. Measure recognition activity on a regular basis (annually won't cut it)
  3. Turn to data and insights to find correlations between recognition and key business metrics
  4. Use recognition to reinforce key behaviours
  5. Create fun campaigns to boost participation
  6. Encourage employees to recognise from their mobile devices
  7. Communicate the value of recognition and your programme in leadership training sessions to encourage participation from managers
  8. Market your programme to all employees, including your remote workforce
With an easy-to-use recognition platform, you can increase the number of recognitions sent, encourage employees to recognise others more often and quickly raise adoption rates. The more your employees recognise and are recognised, the happier and more engaged your entire workforce will be. All you have to do is get started.

What are you waiting for?

If motivating employees was as easy as paying them handsomely, the organisation with the highest wage bill would be the most productive. But we know that it’s not that simple. In reality, efforts to improve employee engagement and morale can increase productivity by up to 31 per cent. To improve your company’s productivity, start by making recognition a fundamental part of its culture.

Click here to find out more about Achievers’ employee engagement platform.

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